In May 2020, Joe Biden, then-candidate for President, called for the creation of a government-run credit bureau that, according to Reuters, “that could compete with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and, according to the campaign, minimize racial disparities in lending.”  Biden said that “[t]oday’s credit reports, which are issued by just three large private companies, are rife with problems: they often contain errors, they leave many ‘credit invisible’ due to the sources used to generate a credit score, and they contribute to racial disparities, widening the African American homeownership gap.”

There are many appropriate criticisms of a public credit registry, including an opinion piece that appeared in MartketWatch where Dan Quan of CATO wrote that To Fix Problems with Credit Reporting, We Need a Better Government Watchdog, Not Biden’s Idea of New Public Credit Bureau.

During the TransUnion (TRU) Q3 2020 earnings call, TransUnion’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher A. Cartwright was asked about a proposal from Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, that would create a national, public credit bureau.